hair rose and my limbs failed me as I
took in its fatal and incredible words.

"'Died this day at the Colonnade, James Forsythe De Witt Holmes. New
York papers please copy.'

"James Forsythe De Witt Holmes was my husband, and his last letter,
which was at that very moment lying beside the cushion, had been dated
from the Colonnade. Was I dreaming or under the spell of some frightful
hallucination which led me to misread the name on the slip of paper
before me? I could not determine. My head, throat and chest seemed bound
about with iron, so that I could neither speak nor breathe with freedom,
and, suffering thus, I stood staring at this demoniacal bit of paper
which in an instant had brought the shadow of death upon my happy life.
Nor was I at all relieved when a little later I flew with the notice
into a neighbor's apartment, and praying her to read it for me, found
that my eyes had not deceived me and that the name was indeed my
husband's and the notice one of death.

"Not from my own mind but from hers came the first suggestion of
comfort.

"'It cannot be your husband who is meant,' said she; 'but some one of
the same name. Your husband wrote to you yesterday, and this person must
have been dead at least two days for the printed notice of his decease
to have reached New York. Some one has remarked the striking similarity
of names, and wishing to startle you, cut the slip out and pinned it on
your cushion.'

"I certainly knew of no one inconsiderate enough to do this, but the
explanation was so plausible, I at once embraced it and sobbed aloud in
my relief. But in the midst of my rejoicing I heard the bell ring in my
apartment, and running thither, encountered a telegraph boy holding in
his outstretched hand the yellow envelope which so often bespeaks death
or disaster. The sight took my breath away. Summoning my maid, whom I
saw hastening towards me from an inner room, I begged her to open the
telegram for me. Sir, I saw in her face, before she had read the first
line, a confirmation of my very worst fears. My husband was----"

The young widow, choked with her emotions, paused, recovered herself for
the second time, and then went on.

"I had better show you the telegram." Taking it from her pocket-book,
she held it towards me. I read it at a glance. It was short, simple and
direct.

"Come at once. Your husband found dead in his room this morning. Doctors
say heart disease. Please telegraph."

"You see it